Caz boys lacrosse wins second state championship

Lakers rally past Bronxville in Class C title game

The Cazenovia boys lacrosse team won its second state Class C championship in the last three years on Saturday at St. John Fisher College, near Rochester, where it rallied from a four-goal deficit to defeat Bronxville 13-11 in the title game.
Adam Walburger

By now, the Lakers' back line of Joe Colligan, Eli Mitchell, Jay Hahn and Mike Nourse had settled down, and it spent the early part of the third period thwarting Bronxville's attempts to restore its margin, giving Cazenovia ample time to whittle away at the rest of its deficit.

Cook landed his third goal in the first minute of the period, and Cannizzaro cut it to 8-7 midway through. A tense exchange followed, Bronxville twice stretching the margin to two, the Lakers twice responding, and it was Cook scoring both times to give him five for the day.

So the fourth quarter started with Cazenovia still behind, 10-9, but owning all of the momentum, something that only got more pronounced when P.J. Brown found the net less than a minute into the period and the Lakers finally tied it, 10-10.

It only figured that Cannizzaro was in the midst of the game's decisive sequence, starting when he put in the go-ahead goal with 9:28 left to move Cazenovia in front 11-10.

After a big defensive stop by Colligan, Cannizzaro fed Kyle Brown for a key insurance goal with 5:04 to play and, just nine seconds later, scored again to make it 13-10 when he forced a turnover on the ensuing face-off and ran straight to the net, firing a shot past Bronxville goalie Eric Pass.

Though Jack Grass scored with 2:09 to play, the Lakers made one more defensive stop and ran out the clock, claiming a state champoinship to match the one earned in 2011.